


Bucky's Christmas Miracle

by vanillafluffy



Series: JB in the Tower [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Raconteur, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Christmas, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Eve, Christmas Miracles, Christmas Presents, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:09:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21893419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: In which Bucky finally remembers Steve and tells Maria Hill the story of how they first met.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Maria Hill
Series: JB in the Tower [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1577407
Kudos: 17





	Bucky's Christmas Miracle

Steve has ridden down from the complex upstate, face numb from the cold, hands stiff from gripping the handlebars despite his gloves. The first thing he does is go to the apartment that’s reserved for him at the Tower to dump his duffel bag and a large black trash bag filled with gift-wrapped packages. He takes a hot shower to warm up, pulls on casual clothes, then heads downstairs to see Maria Hill.

It’s Christmas Eve, so not a lot of work is getting done. Even in Security, there are signs of revels-- tinsel, plates of cookies, holiday music playing somewhere nearby. The conversations he hears in passing seem to have more to do with plans for celebrations than security.

“Good to see you,” Maria says when he enters her office. “How was traffic?” She’s wearing the same trim, navy blue uniform she always does, unornamented. The only concession to the holiday she’s made is a jar of red and white mints on her desk.

“Traffic sucked, and the weather looks like it’s going to get rotten. I don’t think it’s cold enough for snow--I think we’re going to have a wet Christmas.”

“Lovely. Not that it matters, I wasn’t planning on leaving the Tower anyway.”

“How’s Bucky?” he blurts. He can’t help it. Bucky, who calls himself JB these days, insists that he has no memory of Steve before the Battle Above the Potomac. They’ve finally gotten to the point where they can interact civilly, although Steve gets the evil eye every time he slips and calls him Bucky. “Any change? Does he remember anything?”

Maria shakes her head. “I would’ve let you know, Steve. I don’t know what to say--he may never remember. You know what a number Hydra did on his head.”

Steve sighs. “I know. Where is he right now?”

“JARVIS, where’s James currently?” It always strikes him as strange that she calls Bucky that--he must be serious about Maria if she lets her address him as James--the only one who ever called him that was his mother. The rest of his family called him Jimmy. To Steve he’d always been Bucky--that caught on around the neighborhood and followed him into the army…. 

_JB is currently in St. Patrick’s Cathedral,_ the AI informs them. _He has been there for forty-seven minutes._ Yikes, even the AI calls him JB--probably by request. If that’s what Bucky wants, Steve will make the effort--but it won’t be easy.

“There you go. You know, until you told me that sort of thing was normal for him, I was highly suspicious of why he was spending so much time there.”

Steve reaches for the jar and helps himself to a peppermint. “Believe me, it’s the most hopeful sign I can think of that he’s getting back to his old self. He was raised Catholic back when that was taken really seriously. These days, I don’t know…but I can’t begin to count the number of times he’d drag me into some church to light candles, especially when Becca came down with polio.”

“Yes, he’s told me about her. She was the youngest, then Betsy, Olivia and James was the eldest. He remembers them, he remembers his parents--he remembers a lot.”

“But not me.” Steve tries to keep the bitterness from his voice. It’s certainly not Maria’s fault. And he should be happy, because at least Bucky’s alive and free…but he wants his friend back. Is that too much to hope for for Christmas?  
_____________

The white marble of St. Patrick’s is familiar to JB in a way that comforts him. Of everything he’s encountered in the 21st century, this place is the least changed of any he recalls. He recognizes the statues of saints as if they’re old friends. The patterns made by the stained glass are a constant, even the fragrance of the incense is no different that it was in his boyhood.

The rosary he purchased months ago in the gift shop is very similar to the one his mother used to own, and that’s another thought that warms him. It’s not easy to concentrate this afternoon--it’s Christmas Eve, after all, and secular subjects keep distracting him.

The party Tony is throwing tomorrow…that’s sure to be a blast, his pal throws some incredible parties--but again, that’s hardly giving glory to God.

Captain Rogers is going to be there, he knows, and that’s going to be awkward. Yeah, at least they’re getting along now--going clothes shopping with him and Sam a couple months ago had broken the ice, no pun intended, but he still has a tendency to look at JB with big, sad puppy dog eyes because he doesn’t remember their so-called former friendship.. It’s really fucking annoying-- _Stop that!_ “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

A young boy, ten maybe? dashes down the aisle from the front of the church. Another boy, taller, maybe a little older, catches up with him and snags the back of his jacket. “Don’t run in church, Leo. God doesn’t like it.”

“Why not?” Leo asks querulously.

“Because he thinks you’re trying to get away from him.”

JB bites back a grin. _Flawless logic, kid._

_A boy looking up at him, wheezing. “Why is it so smoky in here?”_

_“That’s incense. God likes it.”_

_“God likes his house to smell like stinky perfume in a locker room?” More wheezing._

_“I guess it reminds him of when he was a baby.”_

JB blinks. That was a _memory_. Things still surface from time to time, but this…. The other boy was short and skinny--about the same age as Leo, but there’s a gut punch of recognition--he was the prepubescent Steve Rogers, bad lungs and all.

“God help me,” he whispers.

As if that first glimpse has torn a hole in the barrier that kept him from accessing them, memories flood out, overwhelming him, like water in a glass filling up the spaces between ice cubes. Steve bringing his sketch pad along and drawing quietly while Bucky said a rosary for Becca. Making fried bologna sandwiches over tin can “campfires”. Sharing books and movies, being roommates before the army, being rescued from that Hydra hell-hole…

Oh God, he’s been so cold! He cringes as he thinks of how often he’s addressed Steve as ‘Captain Rogers’. How could he possibly have forgotten? It’s incredible to him that only moments ago, those scores of memories hadn’t been there…and now they are.

 _I feel like such a heel. The way I acted!_ He exhales. Unlike the legion of the dead he’s responsible for, the ones he includes in his daily prayers, Steve is alive and will be happy enough to grant him absolution. _All I have to do is ask._

Christmas…Steve…he grins widely at another long-ago memory and rises to his feet. Placing the rosary into his pocket, he turns to go. He’s got some last-minute shopping to do.  
_______________

At some point, James must have told JARVIS to admit her unconditionally, because Maria Hill has barely stepped off the elevator when the front door opens at her approach. As she moves down the hallway toward the living room, she’s greeted by the sound of music, something with trumpets filling the space with joyful noise.

James dances over to he--actually dances--takes her in his arms and twirls her around before kissing her. Mm, it’s a very enjoyable kiss.

Something is different about him. It’s not the cable-knit fisherman’s sweater he has on with jeans, she's seen those before. He hasn’t had a fresh haircut…no, it’s him, his energy is even higher than usual and he seems particularly pleased with himself.

“You’re alone?” he says, looking around as if he could have possibly missed a second person.

“Steve ran into somebody and stopped to chat. It was nice of you to invite him, I know he appreciates it.”

“Of course, love of my life!” He begins kissing her again, and Maria squirms. The kissing is delightful, but the effusive language makes her uncomfortable. Love of his life, indeed!

“You’re awfully cheerful all of a sudden.”

He beams at her. God, that smile is a deadly weapon! “I love Christmas! And this the the first time I’ve really had a Christmas since…before the War, I guess.” His arms are around her waist now and he smiles down at her. “It looks like it’s going to be one of the best ever.” 

Spinning her around and around and kissing her til she’s breathless, Maria is in the moment--no man has ever been so unintimidated by her as James is--when there’s a genteel cough and Steve Rogers says, “Uh, hello?”

Although he stops twirling her, James doesn’t tense up the way he used to at the mere mention of Steve’s name. Instead he smiles pleasantly, that incandescent grin…Steve blinks. Poor guy, he’s still hoping for some kind of miracle.

Metal arm still around her waist, he plucks a brightly wrapped package from the nearby console table and tosses it toward Steve. “Merry Christmas!”

Steve catches it. Looks at it blankly for a moment. Maria has just enough of a glimpse of it to register that it’s wrapped with pages from the Sunday comics when Steve tucks it under his arm with mumbled thanks.

“Open it,” James orders him.

It isn’t a big package--roughly the dimensions of a shirt box--newsprint printed all over with grids and word bubbles. Steve hesitates, then resolutely tears it along the taped flap on the bottom. 

As he opens the box, Maria realizes that James is holding himself alertly, watching, although his expression is as pleasant as ever. Then as Steve views the contents, Maria wants to hit her paramour, hard, repeatedly--because nothing should ever put an expression like that on Steve’s face.

Shattered. That’s the only word for it. He looks up from whatever the contents are and plaintively whimpers, “Bucky….”

Maria looks sharply at James, who smiles beatifically and says, “Merry Christmas, Stevie.”

James deftly disengages his arm from around her and takes a step forward as Steve lunges toward him. He impacts hard enough to rock James back on his heels, and she knows how difficult that is to do. Steve is--oh god, is he _crying_? Maria is aghast.

He’s clinging to James for all he’s worth. James shifts his feet, turning--for a bizarre moment, she thinks they’re dancing--but no, James has his arms around Steve, patting his back and rocking him like he’s comforting a young child. He catches her eye and gives a little ‘It’s okay’ nod--but how can it be when Steve Rogers is openly weeping?

After a couple minutes, Steve goes from crying to sniffling. James thumps him on the back a couple times, and says, “Ah, mush! Pull yourself together, ya big lunk!”

Steve straightens up, eyes red, nose running. He reaches for one of the folded linen napkins next to the cookie tins on the table.

“Not on the good napkins!” James expostulates. “Were you raised by wolves? Here!” He hands him a paper napkin from the counter, and while Steve is making use of it, wets a dish towel under the kitchen faucet. “Hold still,” he says, wiping Steve’s wet face. “Last time I did this, I didn’t have to reach up this far.”

Steve blows his nose again. “At least this time, there’s no blood.”

“There’s that,” James agrees. 

They look at one another, then they’re both braying with hysterical laughter. Maria watches, nonplussed. The careful politeness of the last months is gone. This is new, but comfortable. Or maybe...not new at all.

“Hey, the lady promised me cookies and milk,” Steve mock-complains. “I knew it was a scam.”

James whistles, and the house droid zips into the room. “Lefty, chuck this in the laundry for me, will you? Thanks.” He drops the sodden dish towel, which the droid retrieves and zips away with. He turns on the tap and washes his hands. “Sure. Cookies, milk, coffee, cocoa--you name it.”

“Milk is fine.”

“What about you, Hill?”

“Almond milk.” she replies, knowing he keeps it for her.

“You call your droid ‘Lefty’?” Steve stares in the direction the ‘bot departed in. “Why?”

“Because it’s red,” James says, digging in the cupboard for glasses. “You know, starboard is green, port is red, starboard is right and port is left. Ergo, Lefty.”

In a moment, two glasses of regular milk and one of vanilla almond milk are on the table, James is opening the tins to reveal four different kinds of cookies: chocolate chip with nuts and cherry pieces, peanut butter kisses, cinnamon-oatmeal-raisin, and Linzer tortes. She knows he’s baked a lot lately, but the stockpile he reveals is unexpected.

Maria, who is powerfully curious, can’t resist taking a look in the box that prompted such a reaction/. Whatever she expected, it wasn’t office supplies: a pad of unlined paper, a box of colored pencils, a pencil sharpener--and a chocolate bar.

“Okay, I’ve got to know--what _is_ this? Why did it give Steve such a meltdown?”

“That’s a long story,” Steve says. “Tell her, Buck.”

James snorts. “While you stuff your face with cookies? I’m on to you!” Steve smirks. “Well, it is a long story, we’re talking all the way back in December of 1927.

“I was going on ten. Now, I know I’ve told you my da was a maintenance guy. That got us a place to live, but he had to hustle for side-jobs to keep us all fed. I loved going along with him, one, ‘cause he was a great guy and I idolized him, and two, because a lot of the time I could mooch a sandwich or something from the lady of the house. It left a little more for the girls, if I didn’t eat our groceries.” Emphasis on ‘our’….

“Anyway, we were walking to where some lady had a leaky pipe under her sink, and my da says to me, ‘Jimmy, whatever you do, if this lady offers you food, don’t you take it. She’s got a sick boy and not much money and anything you eat, you’re taking it right out of their mouths’.” James shakes his head. “I always thought I was being clever, but Da was on to me.”

“He called you Jimmy?”

“Everybody did--”

“Except his mom,” Steve interjects, his eyes twinkling, “ _She_ called him James. She was the only one who did.”

It’s interesting, that his mother was the only only who called him James, and that he permits it from her. He’s always spoken of his mom with the greatest respect, and she’s heard that the way a man treats his mother is a guide to the way he’ll treat any other important woman in his life. “Where did ‘Bucky’ come from?”

“Patience, woman--we’ll get to that. So, we got to the apartment, and my da got to work under the sink, and I got bored and wandered off. It was so cold in there I thought maybe somebody left a window open, so I figured I ought to go close it. I went down the hall, and in this little room about the size of your shoe closet, was a kid in bed, covered in blankets, nose the color of a radish from the cold, looked like he was about six years old.”

“I was eight and a half!” Steve protests through a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie. They’re very good cookies, Maria has to admit.

“Okay, seven, but that’s my final offer. Skinny little kid. Needed a haircut.” She’s never realized before what a born raconteur James is--but maybe that’s because he’s always kept his stories short and sweet before this. “He was sitting there in bed with a pad of paper across his knees, drawing a scene from ‘Robin Hood’, where Robin’s fighting Little John on the bridge. Pretty good, for a little kid.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve reaches for another cookie, peanut butter this time. “Better than you, anyway.”

“It’s a good thing you’re not allergic to peanuts any more. Used to be, I couldn’t even have a bag of peanuts at a ball game without you wheezing if you were downwind.” James purses his lips. “Where was I? Right--he showed me his sketchpad, and sat there telling me all about the books they were scenes from-- or his version of comic strips or news stories--and I notice he’s only got a couple pages left. Well, there’s not much I can do about that, but I can do something about the draft--most of the putty was gone from around one of the panes--so I nip on back down the hall, and while my da is still under the sink, I get what I need out of his tool box real quiet-like and go back and fix the window. On the way home--”

“Wait a minute,” Steve interrupts. “That’s not all of it.”

“What? I fixed the window!”

Steve shakes his head at Maria. “He _did_ fix it. He mixed up the putty or whatever it was, explaining to me every step of the way why he was doing what he was doing. He was mostly looking at the window. I was over to his right, and I could see him _and_ the doorway. He was talking about how to tell if the putty was making a good seal, and I looked up, and there’s Mr. Barnes standing there, watching us.”

“Oh yeah,” James chimes in. “I must’ve blocked that out, it was so traumatic. I was just finishing up when Da spoke up. ‘Well, Jimmy m’ boy, let’s see what kind of job you’re doing here with my tools.’ I just about crapped my pants, because it was one of the house rules that nobody touched Da’s tools, ever, because they were his livelihood, and without his livelihood, we’d all be out on the street starving to death. And here I’d borrowed them just to show off how smart I was.”

“Did he really talk like that?” Maria asks Steve, because when he’s quoted his father, James has lapsed into a strong Irish brogue.

“He sure did,” Steve assures her. “He came over as a kid, but he never really lost the accent.”

“Go on!” Maria says, nibbling a Linzer torte.

“He inspected what I’d done and nodded. Then he looked at the rest of the window and found a couple other panes that needed patching, and he made me do it with him watching. If I’d borrowed his tools to show off for some kid, I could darn well show off for him, too.” James shudders. “Hardest test I ever took!”

“You did a good job, though,” Steve consoles him. “It never rattled after that, and my room stayed a lot warmer!”

“Anyway, we were walking home, and I halfway expected a licking when we got there. Then Da said, ‘You did a good job, Jimmy. I guess you were listening to me after all. Don’t think that means you can muck about with my tools any time you please, but like as not, I’d’ve fixed that window myself if I knew about it, so no harm done.

”I was so relieved! I asked him if it would be alright if I went by the greengrocer on the way home. Sometimes I could earn a couple dimes sweeping up or cleaning the bins. He asked me what I needed money for, and I told him, ‘That kid is stuck in that room with nothing to do but draw and he’s almost out of paper. I wanted to buy him a new pad for Christmas’.

“He stopped and looked at me, and I thought I was going to get a lecture about charity beginning at home, but he just looked at for me for what felt like a solid minute, and he told me, ‘You did a good job fixing that window. And I’m proud of you for thinking of someone besides yourself, especially at this time of year. Now, don’t expect this to happen every day, but I think you deserve something for showing initiative.’ He reached into his pocket and pressed two quarters into my hand. Two quarters! I don’t think I ever had that much money at one time in my whole life before! I felt like a Rockefeller!”

“He came back a few days later, on Christmas Eve,” Steve picks up the tale. “Gave me a box just like that, wrapped in the funny pages, with a new pad of paper, a box of colored pencils, a pencil sharpener and a big old bar of chocolate.”

“Which you shared with me,” James reminds him. “And I got a copy of ‘Treasure Island’ for Christmas, so a couple days later, I went back and read it to him while he drew pictures of pirates. And I’d written my name inside the front cover--”

“Chicken scratch! Your handwriting was terrible!”

“Not that bad--Betsy joggled my arm while I was in the middle of it.”

“It looked like his middle name was Buck-anon.” Steve grins. “I thought that sounded like a buckaroo, and I started calling him Bucky.”

“And the rest is history,” James finishes. 

Maria absorbs that for a moment while James applies himself to his milk and cookies. “And it just came back to you all of a sudden at St. Patrick’s?”

James doesn’t look surprised that she knew his whereabouts. “Pretty much--there were these two kids--” 

They chuckle at the ‘God might think you’re trying to get away’ logic of not running in church. He turns to Steve. “And all of a sudden, I thought of that time you asked me why God wanted his house to smell like cheap perfume and gym socks…”

“Did I?” Steve tilts his head, thinking about it. “Funny, I don’t remember that at all.”

…

**Author's Note:**

> I know that in canon, Bucky's birthday is in the spring, but my headcanon has him born on Christmas Day. Hey, if Steve's birthday is July 4th, why can't Bucky's be Christmas? It is _winter_ , after all....


End file.
